


On Dark Nights

by vividder



Category: Fran Bow (Video Game), Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: AU-Elliot can drive, AU-Ghosts might exist, Ambiguity, Drug Trip, Drug Use, F/M, Ghosts, Hallucinations, Head Injury, Horror, LSD, Party, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-16
Updated: 2017-06-16
Packaged: 2018-11-14 16:38:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11212002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vividder/pseuds/vividder
Summary: This sounds like crack but it isn't.Darlene asks Elliot to drive her to a Halloween party.  Elliot agrees.Everything is fine until Elliot goes missing.





	1. Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble

**Author's Note:**

> I am not familiar with the entirety of the Fran Bow game since I haven't played it or watched an entire playthrough. This plot bunny just nested into my mind and wouldn't leave. Please excuse anything that would break canon there as artistic license.

Elliot swore to himself that he would never let Darlene drag him to another party.

  
She’d wanted him to drive her and maybe a few friends back afterward, and Elliot had agreed. Every single time, she promised that this one wouldn’t be as bad as the last one, and Elliot always wanted to believe her so she wouldn’t ride home with some drunk and/or high fuckboy. 

He’d driven her up to this house in the middle of absolute-fucking-nowhere with cars and beer cans strewn about the lawn, and she’d said he could stay in the car.

Of course the one night Elliot didn’t mind staying in the car would be the coldest night in October and the night Angela had warned him not to let the car idle. Elliot felt certain that it would snow if there were any clouds in the sky. But the sky was cloudless and Elliot knew Darlene wouldn’t let him escape early.

After freezing there for two hours, Elliot figured there was no point in staying out in the cold. He would be tormented out here or in there, so he might as well be able to feel his fingers while he suffered. Besides, he could keep an eye on his little sister for a bit, and make sure no one tried anything. Darlene could stand up for herself, but the party would inevitably have drugs and Elliot knew well enough that decisions made under the influence tended to go spectacularly badly.

As he walked up the path to the house, hands stuffed in the pockets of his black hoodie, Elliot felt the music more than he heard it. The bass rumbled through his chest and wormed its way into his bones. He hated that sensation. Lights flashed in the windows as people wearing glow jewelry passed by or someone waved a smartphone or a flashlight.

Someone nodded to him as Elliot walked through the storm door. Inside, the living room had become a makeshift dance floor. Some kid with a turntable had set up shop, and trap music blared through several large speakers in front of the fireplace. People wore costumes and gaudy fake jewelry and clothes that revealed far too much. The dancing was largely of the sexual sort, like what might be seen in the darkest corners of a club. Smoke and the scent of cigarettes and pot hung heavy in the air despite the breeze from the open windows.

Darlene was in there somewhere dressed as a sexy black cat. Maybe not in the living room, but perhaps in one of the upstairs bedrooms or the basement. Elliot was just going to find a quiet place to be where no one was fucking and wait out the party.

Elliot wandered into the kitchen (which was lit with purple UV lights, for some reason) and two enthusiastic bartenders greeted him immediately. A girl dressed as a sexy mad scientist (essentially a long white lab coat with nearly nothing underneath; he could see garters) with purple hair and a boy with a green mohawk, sleeve tattoos, and grimy braces sat behind a mess of glasses, red solo cups, straws, and bottles. “Welcome to our lab! What can I get you tonight, sir?” the boy practically roared.

More than likely at least drunk.

“We got all manner of potions and brews here and you look like a tight ass if I ever saw one...Marla! Open up the good stuff!”

The girl winked at Elliot and turned around to get some of her supplies out onto another table behind her.

“I don’t want anything alcoholic. Just plain Coke. I’m driving,” Elliot managed to stutter out. The noise, the people, the sounds, everything in here overwhelmed him. The last thing he wanted to do was argue with bartenders and add emotions to the toxic atmosphere.

“Coke it is, then,” Green Hair said, some of his bravado fading. Clearly, he had wanted Elliot to request a more adventurous drink. 

Marla poured him a cup and handed it to him. “You doubt my skills?” she asked, doing what Elliot supposed was intended to be a sexy pout.

It had not been worth coming in the house.

Not sure what to do about the advance, Elliot took the plastic cup and wandered up the stairs. He didn’t open any closed door.

When he went back downstairs and to the basement, Elliot found Darlene and a group of her friends playing truth or dare like they had never left high school. She waved to him, and Elliot decided that maybe going back upstairs was better than seeing his sister flash random guys. After all, this was what she’d wanted to do. She’d just yell at him if he interfered.

The Coke did taste slightly off, but Elliot decided that it wasn’t worth the anxiety that confronting the bartenders about it would cause. Darlene played her game, at least he knew she was okay. It was still noisy, but then, it was noisy everywhere and for as much as Elliot hated the crowd and the thumping bass, it at least ensured no one would try to talk to him.

After a while of sitting there, trying to block out everything, Elliot realized he felt strange. Not sick, just...off. He was becoming more anxious by the second, the noise seemed to be getting louder, it was getting way too hot in the room.

He needed to get out of there. This was too much.

Someone opened the door for him. Elliot rushed past them, out onto the lawn and into the cold air. A couple stood on the lawn, making out, and Elliot stumbled when he saw them.

They were dead.

Rotting, desiccated corpses locking lips on the dying grass.

Something was wrong.

He had to get out of here.

This couldn’t be true, but he was seeing it, so it must be true.

He had to get away.

As Elliot ran towards the woods, as far away from the corpses as he could get without taking the car and stranding Darlene, the rules of reality seemed to rewrite themselves. He would look to the left, and when he looked ahead again, he would be stepping on organs. All of the animals, they were dying. The shadows started to whisper to him, first incoherent mumbles and then messages of death, of violence, of Elliot doing the wrong thing and going the wrong places. 

He could feel his chest tightening as he ran, but he couldn’t stop. He had the eerie feeling that on top of everything dying, on top of this chaos, something was following him. As far as Elliot knew, the world was ending with the coppery scent of blood in the air and the intestines and bones squishing and crunching underneath his feet and brushing his face when he came too close to the trees.  The moonlight shone off of the gore and the staring eyes of the animal corpses surrounding him.

As he ran, Elliot began to notice something else: a young girl, blood pouring from her eyes, with brown hair wearing a yellow dress and striped tights. She couldn’t have been more than ten, but she was like something out of a horror movie, calling his name, asking why he was running and what he was doing.  
Why he was scared.

Elliot wanted to tell her to get away, to leave him alone, but he couldn’t get a word out between heaving breaths and gasps. All Elliot could focus on at the moment was the burning of his muscles and the pounding of his shoes against the forest floor. Blood and bodily fluids dripped from the trees and splashed up from the ruptured organs on the ground. He could barely see where he was going, and when his jacket got caught on a tree, he just shrugged it off.

A few feet later, Elliot tripped on a boa constrictor, vivisected from head to tail with its organs hanging out. He landed hard on the ground, getting a foul-tasting mouthful of dirt and blood and meat.  
Elliot coughed and gagged, stood up, and kept running, his fear rising with every moment.

And the girl stayed right behind him.

Later, Elliot wondered why the blood from her eyes never seemed to stain her dress.


	2. Something Wicked This Way Comes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darlene searches for Elliot. Elliot only becomes more confused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The following chapter contains more strong language and stronger words than most of my previous fics, but it's not worse than some episodes of Mr. Robot.

“So, apparently there used to be a mental hospital on this land before they built the house here. Like, way back in the 1940s. It was an asylum for kids,” Jason said, holding the flashlight under his chin and grinning widely. “And they had all sorts here, including a girl who completely lost it one day and killed her folks. Fran Bow, they called her. They tried to treat her, but none of their pills or therapies worked and she just went crazier and crazier until she killed everyone and broke out before killing herself. According to the people that sold us the house, sometimes a girl in a yellow dress with blood on her hands can be seen in the woods.”

Darlene took a pull off of her joint and laughed. “That’s bullshit.”

“No, seriously. Google Fran Bow Dagenhart and the Oswald Asylum. It’s all real.”

Darlene untangled herself from her boyfriend’s embrace and stood up to stretch. “It’s Halloween and everyone’s being creepy right now. And seriously, you can google every urban legend and get a thousand people claiming it happened to someone they knew.”

“Shit, you got me there,” Jason replied, standing up and taking another drink from a red solo cup. 

Upstairs the party was still going hard. More people had arrived, and since it was a Friday, it would probably go until the next morning. 

“I should probably go check on my brother, make sure he hasn’t left me here,” Darlene said to no one in particular. “He should be outside.”

“Can you bring me another Sprite when you come back down?” Shannon called from her perch on the arm of a couch. “Thanks!”

Darlene headed through the living room and out to the car Elliot had borrowed for them, only to find it locked with his phone still inside. It didn’t make much sense for him to be with the party, since he had social phobia and the music and people upset him, but it was really too cold to be outside for any length of time. 

Darlene walked around the house, stepping over people who had passed out, making sure her brother wasn’t hiding somewhere. 

Feeling uneasy about this, she walked back inside and searched the rooms upstairs, bothering several people sleeping off their drinks or sleeping with someone. Elliot wasn’t anywhere to be seen up there, and Darlene resisted the irrational impulse to check the attic. It really unnerved her not to know where Elliot was even though he was probably absolutely fine and annoyed at her for dragging him here.

She asked the group of guys by the door if they’d seen Elliot. “Black hoodie, dark hair, probably scowling?” she asked them.

“He ran out of here about an hour and a half ago,” the guy with a neck tattoo said. “Looked pretty upset. I saw him run outside and then into the woods. Why? You dump him?”

“He’s my brother, you perv,” she spat. “Shit.”

That wasn’t like Elliot at all. Elliot really didn’t run unless there was a reason, and he wouldn’t do something so stupid like going into the woods at night without telling anyone - something was very, very wrong.

Darlene walked into the kitchen and went up to the makeshift bar. “Hey, a few hours ago you served a guy in a black hoodie. What did you give him?”

“Coke, like he asked for,” a guy with a green mohawk told her. “Wasn’t that what he asked for?”

The girl in the ridiculous mad scientist outfit turned around from mixing a drink. “He did ask for Coke. He, however, did not refuse the extra acid and kiddie cocaine I added for free. Where’d he go, by the way? He was hot.”

That was the exact wrong thing to say.

Darlene grabbed the girl by the lapels of her “sexy” lab coat and slammed her into the wall next to the stove. “What. The. Hell?” she shouted.

Her partner went over to them, clearly shocked. “Seriously, Marla, the guy said he was driving!”

“He had a stick up his ass and he needed to learn to have a little fun!” she protested, then turned back to Darlene. “Put me down, bitch, or I’ll kick your head in.”

“Cunt, you drugged my brother to try and get him to fuck you and now he’s tripping balls and lost in the motherfucking woods!” And with that, Darlene pulled back her fist and punched Marla in the nose before letting her drop to the ground, clutching her face.

“Catfight!” some drunk guy called. “Meow!”

“Bitch could dominate me any day,” his buddy added.

Darlene flipped them off and headed back downstairs. The green-haired guy followed her, clearly disgusted by his colleague’s action. “Listen, my name’s Clark and I had nothing to do with spiking his drink and I’ll help you find your brother,” he said very quickly.

“Wait, what happened?” Shannon asked.

“Someone spiked Elliot’s drink and now he’s lost in the woods while on acid,” Darlene explained. 

“Oh my God.” Shannon was on her feet in a second, followed by Jason. “How long has he been out there?”

“Probably an hour and a half, at least.”

“Shit. It’s cold enough out that he could start to get hypothermia,” Clark said as Jason started grabbing his and Darlene’s coats off of a heap on the floor.

Shannon began to dig through the pile of garments for hers. 

“I’m less worried about hypothermia and more worried about him hurting himself,” Darlene said, getting ready to go.

                                                                                 ~       
  
Elliot couldn’t run anymore. His heart was beating out of his chest and he couldn’t breathe. There was a stitch in his side and it hurt to do anything more than curl up in a ball on the slimy floor. Almost every inch of himself was covered in gore. Elliot doubted that he would ever feel clean again.

The girl caught up to him in no time, and she knelt by his face. “Are you okay?” she asked. “You look sick.”

Elliot closed his eyes and tried to make himself smaller, to avoid her touch without increasing the excruciating pain in his sides.

“There are doctors back there, at the asylum. I bet they could help you. But I ran away from them and I can’t go back, you see? I’m hunting for my kitty.”

“Go...away,” Elliot whispered, finally beginning to cry. He was completely spent.

“But I don’t want to leave you if you’re hurt. You might die. Dying’s sad. It happened to my parents.”  
Crying made it harder to breathe.

“You can see the shadows too, can’t you?”

And Elliot could do nothing as the girl cried blood over him and told him tales of death and madness and satanic rituals and a cat named Mr. Midnight.  
  


                                                                              ~

Darlene, Clark, Shannon, and Jason stood in the middle of seemingly nowhere after searching for half an hour. They’d stolen some lights from the party upstairs, but they were dim and Elliot was wearing black, as far as Darlene knew.

  
Their search had begun to feel hopeless. They’d tried calling Elliot’s name and listening for any movement.. Every random noise made Darlene jump. She kept expecting to look down and find herself about to step on her brother’s body.

“Do you know how deep these woods are?” she asked Jason.

“In places, they’re a couple acres deep. Around here, they shouldn’t go very far. There’s a river and a cliff face that cut them off in this region.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s keep searching. Elliot is around here somewhere. We’ll hunt for another hour or so, and then we can call EMS. I don’t give a fuck if the party is busted. They’ll have the tools to find your brother.”

Darlene felt tears come to her eyes and wiped at them with the back of her hand. “It’s just...I don’t want him to die in here.”

“I found something!” Shannon called. She held up a black hoodie from the ground. “Elliot’s jacket!”

Darlene ran forward and grabbed the garment, hugging it to her chest. “Hopefully we’re getting closer.”

Shannon laughed. “Elliot wouldn’t go anywhere without that thing. Girl, we gotta be close.”

“Let’s hope so,” Clark said. “It’s really cold and kinda freaky out here.”

They continued to sweep the woods, fanning out. It wasn’t long until things began to look useless again. After the hoodie, there had been no sign of Elliot within a few hundred feet. Every second they lost, Elliot could be farther away or in more danger. The Ritalin, Elliot could probably handle. It was the LSD that would do the most damage because Elliot was already mental. Darlene had seen her brother hallucinate before. She didn’t want to see it again.

Finally, Clark took off, shouting, “Over here!” All of the flashlights swiveled in his direction. Darlene, Shannon, and Jason ran after him.

“Elliot!” Darlene called. “Elliot, it’s me!”

But there was no response. Just a silhouette running into the trees.

Shit. He forgot her again.

She could see her brother. He was so close. 

They were running parallel to the river now, the moonlight illuminating the water and the cliff face.

Then Elliot jumped on a log spanning the river and climbed to the other side, Darlene’s breath catching as the wood shook under his feet. If he was dumped into the river, he would almost certainly drown or smash against the rocks. But Elliot got across safely and stood on a thin strip of gravelly sand between the rocks and the cliff. His clothes were tattered from catching on branches and he was covered in scratches. His breaths made clouds in front of his face and tears on his cheeks sparkled like miniature stars in the moonlight. He stared at Darlene like a deer caught in the headlights.

“He’s forgotten me again,” Darlene whispered to Shannon. Then she raised her voice. “Elliot, it’s okay. Someone drugged you. But we’re going to take you to get help. Please come back here.”  


                                                                                     ~

“Elliot, it’s okay.”

Elliot didn’t listen beyond that because Darlene was standing in front of him bleeding with one of her arms amputated into a gangrenous stump and maggots eating her eyes. She was dead too.

They were all corpses.

Everyone in the world was dead except for him and now they were coming.

Something snapped in Elliot and he began to sob.


	3. Naught's Had, All's Spent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darlene gets Elliot out of the woods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW in this chapter. Read the tags if you are concerned.

Elliot began to hyperventilate and sob loudly as Darlene spoke. Her attempt at comforting him had done the exact opposite, it seemed. 

He turned around and began to beat his head against the rocks. When he pulled away, the rocks glistened red.

Jason was on the log, climbing across as Elliot whacked his head a third and a fourth time on the wall, shouting in pain each time. Then he turned around, stumbling, before falling into a heap and vomiting. 

Darlene was truly crying now as Shannon hugged her, holding her tight as Clark stood to the side, his mouth stuck open like a nutcracker.

Jason pulled off his shirt and tore it into strips and tied them around the wound on Elliot’s head to lessen the bleeding. 

“I can’t get him back across here!” Jason shouted to them. “There’s some rocks about half a mile down that I might be able to use.”

So carefully, they followed Jason as he edged down the river with Elliot in tow. From time to time, Elliot fidgeted or moaned, but they were unconscious tics, nothing that signaled he was waking up. 

Eventually, they reached the point where Jason had said there would be rocks, and there were, but they were slippery with water and moss. 

Somehow, Jason made it across. Darlene couldn’t watch, but the second he was over, she was at her brother’s side. He was pale and the bandage on his head had been soaked through. Clark directed them so they could get Elliot’s jacket back on without hurting him.

Jason, despite everyone else’s concerns, insisted on carrying Elliot back. He managed to get Elliot onto his back and used his arms to hold Elliot’s wrists so he stayed upright. His feet sometimes dragged behind the group, drawing two furrows in the dirt. Darlene walked next to Elliot in case he woke up.

It was a somber trip back.  


                                                                               ~

Darlene had been lost in thought when she heard someone moan.

Surprised, she glanced around until she saw Elliot, who’s eyes were opened into pained slits. “Elliot!” she cried, relieved. “Jason, I think he’s awake.” She turned back to her brother. “You’re okay. I’m here. We need to get you out of here.”

Elliot began to squirm before suddenly yanking his arm out of Jason’s grip. “Hey!” Jason called more out of surprise than indignation. Clark and Shannon had caught Elliot and managed to prevent him from falling.

Elliot seemed to want to crawl away, but couldn’t quite figure out how. He pulled at the dirt with his arms, but he was too weak to move anywhere. The fear from before was back.

He threw up again before laying still, new tears glistening on his face.  


                                                                          ~

The girl in the yellow dress had followed the corpses carrying Elliot into the woods. Now she was carrying a skull as she ran up and knelt beside him. “Your kitty found you,” she said, smiling at Elliot. The blood on her face transformed the expression into a grisly sight.

Elliot reached for her, and she took his hand. “What happened to your head? Did you fall?”  

The girl patted at her clothing. “I had some band-aids here, but I don’t know where they went.” She straightened her dress. “Don’t be afraid. Your kitty is very sad. She says you’re very sick but it isn’t your fault. She won’t hurt you. But I wouldn’t stay in these woods. The monsters are coming.” 

And with that, the girl jogged back into the shadows.  


                                                                        ~

Elliot calmed down more quickly this time, or maybe he was just too weak to continue to fight. 

He didn’t lose consciousness again either, which was good. Darlene got down so she could look him in the eyes. Maybe if he’d started to remember her, or if the effects of the drug had become clouded by the injury, her being there could help. “Someone spiked your drink earlier and you...hit your head.” Darlene blinked the image of what Elliot had done out of her mind; she couldn’t afford to start crying or look too upset and worry him. “We’re going to get help as soon as we can.”  
  
_Does she know the monsters are coming?_  
  
“Monsters,” Elliot slurred.

“He’s probably still hallucinating,” Clark said, pacing around behind them. “LSD doesn’t wear off for like, ten hours or something? I dunno exactly, but I know it lasts a freaky long time.”

“None of the monsters are going to hurt you,” Darlene said. “We’re gonna get you out of here.”

Elliot allowed himself to be picked up again, and they continued to walk.

“If you need to stop, tell us,” Darlene told Elliot.

Elliot moaned at that. “Head.”

“Yeah, I know. Stay awake, if you can.”

Thankfully, it wasn’t far until they were out of the woods and into a clearing. Elliot had continued to mumble without making much sense as long as someone spoke to him, which was as good as it was worrying. At least he wasn’t unconscious and was still breathing. 

It didn’t stop Darlene from wanting to throttle Marla. If she had just done what she was supposed to and not tried to have ‘fun’, then Elliot would be okay right now, not speaking random words and bleeding out of his head. And she wouldn’t be freaking out right now either. She would be having fun and dancing and probably eventually making out with someone. After all, the party looked like it was still going from across the yard. It sounded like it too, with all the bass.

Shannon tossed her keys to Darlene. “Get the car started. I’m gonna run inside and get a couple blankets and towels.”

“Wait, we’re not driving to the hospital, are we?” Darlene asked, stopping where she was standing. There was no way in heck she was going to drive an hour to the nearest urgent care with Elliot in that condition.  “I thought we were going to call an ambulance.”

“You call an ambulance, I get called busted and get locked up for possession and probably a hundred other things,” Jason called back to her. “No, there’s a diner about two miles down the road. We can call an ambulance from there without anyone getting arrested.”

Darlene opened her mouth to protest, but they were already several yards away, and arguing wasn’t going to help Elliot right now. She jogged to catch up and helped Elliot into Shannon’s blue minivan. It was easiest just to sit him in one of the back passenger seats and recline it than to lay him across the seats in the third row. Darlene took the seat on the opposite side from Elliot and tried to keep him talking.

He looked exhausted. He was shivering even after Clark turned on the heat as high as it would go. Shannon arrived with a pile of old blankets and towels barely a minute later, and after draping a few over Elliot, they were off.  
The few minutes in the car were tense. Shannon drove quickly yet carefully across the back roads and gravel paths, and once again, Darlene was glad that at least one of them hadn’t been drinking that night. Elliot closed his eyes, and Darlene’s heart stopped. She reached over and shook his shoulder.

Elliot moaned and blinked at her. He was clearly getting worse. If anything, his face had gotten paler, which only made the blood that had run out from under the makeshift bandage all the more stunning.

When they pulled in and stopped, Shannon went to let the restaurant staff know that an ambulance would be arriving in their parking lot while Jason called 911. Clark immediately got to work with the old towels, tearing them into strips and using them to replace the old bandages. Elliot kept reaching up to touch the wound, but Darlene stopped him every time. Now she wasn’t even sure if he realized he’d been injured at all.

At least help would be here soon.  
  
                                                                                    ~

The ambulance arrived almost forty minutes later. Elliot had begun to have seizures, which only upset him more and brought back some of the agitation as he insisted that the monsters were getting him. Darlene couldn’t do anything to help him as he convulsed and shouted and swatted at things that weren’t really there. She put her hand on his shoulder and told him it would be okay, but Elliot didn’t seem aware of her anymore.

The paramedics arrived, sirens blazing, and began to work immediately. They started an IV line and injected her brother with sedatives, praying more than anything that it wouldn’t interact badly with the drugs already in his system.

Before long, they were on their way to the hospital, and Darlene felt like she could breathe again.  


                                                                                ~

At the edge of the woods, a girl in a yellow dress watched them go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! This was a lot of fun to write.  
> Comments and Kudos are always welcome.  
> Chapter titles were quotes from Macbeth, which is one of my favorite plays.  
> Have a lovely day!


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